CATS | ANIMALS

Benedict, the Beautiful

When the neighbour’s cat comes visiting

Photo by Suma Narayan

It is 7.30 in the evening, winter in Melbourne, and a cold, rainy day. It rains for five minutes. Then stops. Then starts again. The wind picks up. Our windows rattle. Somewhere, a magpie carols with defiant melodiousness, a signal that he’s turning in for the night.

There is a faint and plaintive meow outside our front door. I can just about hear it. My husband, with the earphones that are his permanent accessory, cannot. I open the door, and there he is, staring at me through the screen door.

It is our signal to go and pet him, and talk to him. After that he runs back to his home, two doors down. But on some days, he tries his best to enter the house. We have not been letting him in, because he’s not ours, to begin with.

But last week, he crawled lithely beneath my husband’s arm, and slithered in. Though he looks big, he’s just turned a year old. He belongs to the breed called ‘rag-doll’.

Photo by Suma Narayan

He set about exploring every nook and cranny of our house, crawling beneath the bed, sniffing at the lower shelves in the kitchen, disappearing beneath the table, where he had smelled something interesting.

I knocked at the neighbours door and informed her of Benedict’s wherabouts, and she came over and carried him back. That was the first time. After that, he sits outside our door, and looks woebegone, till we let him in.

I was at my laptop once, when he wandered in. He came up to me, put both his forepaws on my lap, claws turned in, and looked at me very earnestly. Satisfied, probably that I was what he thought I was,he went away.

When my daughters in law and grandddaughters come home, the first question they ask is, ‘Where is Benedict?’ We are all potty about cats. He is an added attraction to come over. And Benedict, if he is outside his home, shows off for all he’s worth.

Photo by Suma Narayan

He is not happy when we go out grocery shopping, or on our daily walks. He stations himself near the stairs, head half out, staring reproachfully at us, until we are ready to sink with guilt. This is Benedict, looking at us, as though he never expected this of us. That this was more than flesh and blood could bear.

Photo by Suma Narayan

Sometimes, the birds in the tree near my house set up a racket of calls and chirps, and Benedict runs to the gallery, staring at them steely-eyed, till they are quiet. Then he walks back to us triumphantly.

“See,” he seems to be saying, “one should be firm about such things.” We nod humbly. “Of course,” we say.

He makes us smile, does Benedict. However out of sorts we feel, about anything, one look at his face, drives away our blues. The way he wants to be part of everything we do, and is interested in everything and everyone, is a welcome diversion from the disturbing evidence , all around us, of man’s inhumanity to man, and

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. W.B.Yeats

Thank you for reading. Have a blessed day.

ⓒ 2026 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.